The Foreign Office is investigating reports Britons may have been among a group of construction workers kidnapped by gunmen in Nigeria.

Police in the West African country said seven foreigners working for construction company Setraco were taken after the gang killed a guard at a site in Bauchi state in the north of the country overnight.

An FCO spokeswoman said: "We are aware of the reports and are making inquiries with local authorities."

Local government chairman Adamu Aliyu told reporters that those kidnapped were from Britain, Italy, Greece and Lebanon.

Radical Islamist group Boko Haram has been engaged in a guerilla campaign in the largely Muslim north of Nigeria over the past 18 months.

Last month around 40 hostages, six understood to have been Britons, were killed in an attack on the In Amenas gas field in Algeria.

Some 29 of the hostage-takers died, while three were captured by Algerian troops during a special forces mission to end the four-day stand-off which began on January 16.

In the wake of the crisis, Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to put terrorism "right at the top of the agenda" for Britain's presidency of the G8 nations this year and vowed to show "iron resolve" in tackling Islamist threats.